Beetles and Babies
by sapphire-child
Summary: What the eye can't see, the heart can't grieve over. Charlie decides to go for a walk and chances upon a precious moment with Aaron.


Title: Beetles and Babies  
Original Post Date: 15th January 2006  
Spoilers: set just after the 23rd Psalm  
Summary: Suffering from insomnia and love sickness, Charlie decides to go for a walk and chances upon a precious moment with Aaron.  
Disclaimer: a useless but necessary aid when writing fanfiction so that nobody tries to sue you for stealing their characters and situations.

* * *

He'd had a restless night. Not being much of a sleeper, he'd tossed and turned a lot, trying desperately to surrender to the world of dreams because even thought he disliked dreaming about Claire all the time at least in his subconscious she still talked to him.

When it became so late that is was early, he'd simply given up. Standing up and stretching laboriously, he decided to walk from one end of the camp to the other, see if he couldn't find something to do other than stare at nothing.

He'd never seen the camp so still before. Several small fires cast their flickering light over their pathetic little beach settlement. Everyone was fast asleep inside their shelters and nobody seemed ready to wake up any time soon. This worried him greatly. Anybody could sneak in at any time and steal someone away. Like Aaron.

Claire often slept with him in her arms but it would be all too easy to silence her wouldn't it? Assuming of course she was sleeping with Aaron in her arms. What with the increasing amount of times that she put him to bed in his cradle, anyone could just come into the camp and...

Charlie stopped his thoughts very suddenly.

He wasn't _supposed_ to be thinking about her still, let alone her son. Why should he bother worrying about her when she'd pushed him away so forcibly? The truth was that he couldn't help it. At some point in the past weeks that he'd known Claire, that he'd begun to know Aaron, he'd fallen hard – for both of them – and now that they were out of his life he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

He approached her shelter with some trepidation. Chances were she was asleep but Aaron had been known to wake up at bizarre hours before, demanding to be fed. However, as he drew closer he saw absolutely no sign of Claire at all.

Consequences be damned. Charlie wasn't about to let anybody get away with taking her away from him again – even if she didn't want anything to do with him at the moment. He broke into a run and within a few moments he was at her shelter. Glancing about wildly he could see no signs of a struggle but then his eyes alighted on the small figure of Aaron, fast asleep in his cradle.

Charlie almost collapsed. He was safe. But where was Claire? Surely she wouldn't leave her son by himself…?

Charlie stepped over to the cradle and squatted beside it. It had been at least a few days now since Claire had booted him out and since that time he had barely laid eyes on Aaron. He couldn't help but smile now at the familiar sight of his puckered lips and peach-fuzz hair and without even thinking, he reached out a hand to tuck a pudgy arm back into his blanket.

Aaron's eyes flew open and Charlie felt a thrill of panic as his little face screwed up in what could only be the beginnings of a full-blown wail and oh _God_ what would Claire do if she came back and found him here with Aaron?

'Hey! Hey, it's just me!' Charlie murmured frantically, trying to tuck the now flailing arm back into the blankets as Aaron whimpered, working his way up to the kind of shrill crying that would wake everyone up and get Charlie into far more trouble than he deserved. 'It's just me mate! Just Charlie! Have you forgotten me already? It's just me, I promise I won't do anything okay? It's okay…just go back to sleep mate, or mummy'll be angry with both of us…well mostly me but you'll still be in trouble for letting me come in…' Charlie continued to mutter to him and after a few moments, Aaron's face unscrunched a little and he regarded Charlie suspiciously.

Charlie breathed again.

Okay, now to get the hell out of here before Claire got back. He made up his mind to stand watch, just out of sight until she got back and then he would go back to his own spot on the beach and then…

He paused. What would he do then?

Oh sod it. He could figure out that part when he got there.

He stood up decisively only to be assaulted be a series of low moans from Aaron. It seemed that now he had someone here paying him attention, he wanted to be cuddled and cosseted and generally fussed over. Terrified he would start crying full out, Charlie bent back over him again, shushing him and trying to tuck that bloody arm back into the blankets…

And then Aaron reached up and caught Charlie's right index finger in his tiny fist.

'Oh…'

And in that snatch of a moment, as Aaron gurgled happily and squeezed the tip of his finger till it went numb, Charlie was horrified to feel his eyes begin to burn with tears.

He tugged gently to no avail, Aaron held onto his finger in a steadfast sort of way, still babbling away quietly and happily.

And then…

'_Charlie?'_

The voice, incredulous as it was angry, had come from behind him. This time he pulled much harder and Aaron's hand slid back into his cradle as Charlie swiftly turned and then pushed his way past Claire who was practically livid with anger, two spots of burning red on her usually pale cheeks.

She grabbed his arm as he passed. 'I thought I told you to stay away from my son!' she hissed. Charlie didn't answer as she shoved him away and then rushed over to Aaron who was now practically wailing.

Charlie stumbled several paces away and then took the opportunity to glance back. Claire had picked Aaron up and was holding him to her, shushing him gently. And yet there was something missing from the scene Charlie thought sadly. He could see himself standing just beside her, reaching his arms around to hold both of them, Aaron's cries stilling…

The unexpected contact from Aaron had surprised him. After all, Charlie had held him a fair few times now but never had Aaron initiated anything – even if it was accidental. So why the hell did such a small thing make him feel so proud and self righteous and just…_good?_

'Claire,'

She doesn't hear him the first time and he has to repeat her name before she glares up at him, an angry _'What_ Charlie?' written plainly across her face.

'I love him.'

Claire stares at him, not speaking, and so he continues.

'And I don't care what you say, I'm not going to stop loving him. And…' he hesitates for the smallest moment and mumbles the final words. '…I don't think he's going to stop loving me either.'

Claire scoffs. 'Aaron's not even a month old yet _Charlie,'_ she says his name with derision, as though it's the cause of his naivety. 'He doesn't know _how_ to love.'

_But he loves_ you _doesn't he? If he loves you then who's to say that he can't love me as well? Didn't you see the way he held my finger so tightly, like he wasn't ever going to let go…?_

When he doesn't offer her an answer, she turns her back on him quite deliberately and he returns to his own space, defeated.

He remembered when he was very small, only four or five, he had found a beetle one day. Delighted by the glossy sheen of its shell and the funny little noises it made, he kept it a secret from his family and put it into a matchbox so that it wouldn't get away.

He'd kept it for several days, hiding it in his pockets or under his bed but then one morning he had opened the box to say good morning to his beetle only to find that it had died during the night.

Needless to say, he had been completely devastated and had come running into the kitchen in his pyjamas, howling for his mother. Instead he ran into his grandmother who wasted no time in swooping him into a bone-crushing hug.

'Oh deary, deary me! What are all these tears for Charlie?'

Charlie had howled for a good few minutes before anyone could get anything out of him at all, but finally he had shown his grandmother the box and explained between sobs all about his beetle. Once he was finished, his grandmother had patted him on the head and dried his tears off whilst his mother put the beetle, still in his box, in the bin outside.

'What the eye can't see the heart won't grieve over,' His grandmother had said wisely to his mother when she had come back inside. 'He's a good, strong lad. He'll get over it in no time at all.'

And she had been right. Within a few days, Charlie had forgotten almost entirely about his beetle and it wasn't until years later when his mother had resurrected the tale at Christmas that he remembered it had even happened. He remembered from then on, because Liam had teased him about it and Charlie had flushed angrily as the rest of the family tittered along. He'd always hated being made fun of.

Now however, the rules had changed. Charlie wasn't four anymore, and the thing that was making his life feel so empty wasn't going anywhere – at least not for a while yet. Finding himself back where he had started, Charlie sank down next to his meagre belongings and surveyed the dark ocean silently, wondering if he could muster the effort to get his guitar out.

In the end he sat there and watched the restless ocean feeling steadily more and more depressed. Even the prospect of a new day did little to stir him – it was still too early for the sun to rise and Charlie knew from experience that the darkest hour was before dawn.


End file.
